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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952904">one way or the other</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rathalos/pseuds/rathalos'>rathalos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>arcobaleno [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Katekyou Hitman Reborn!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cooking, F/M, new genre: Emotional Centrism, not sad enough to be angst but not happy enough to be fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:28:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rathalos/pseuds/rathalos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fon cooks. Luce steals ingredients. Somewhere in between trying to prevent Luce from eating dinner before he even cooks it, Fon has time to reminisce about the past.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fon/Luce (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>arcobaleno [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>one way or the other</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/cqndyy/gifts">cqndyy</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>ah fuck *you open my head and there's no brain in there it's just poly arco brainrot*</p>
<p>title is from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9sS9Z9ihQM">blood like wine</a> by balthazar</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fon cooks to comfort himself. The click of the lighter on the stove engaging, <em>taktaktak</em> as he turns the knob, the weight of his knife against a cutting board and the gut feeling that tells him how much of each ingredient to add—this is what he finds solace in.</p>
<p>But on some days, the ones when he thinks about the past, led there by some meandering path of thought, and questions why it led him <em>here</em> of all places, he cooks to bring back memories.</p>
<p>(Five years old: he stands beside his mother in the kitchen, hands gripping the edge of the counter to pull himself up. He’s not yet tall enough to see inside the pot on the stove, but that won’t stop him from trying.)</p>
<p>Today is one of the latter.</p>
<p>Fon bustles around the kitchen, grabbing ingredients from the cabinets and fridge and laying them out on the counter in preparation to make one of the dinners he’d liked best as a young child—pot stickers.</p>
<p>Colonnello usually handles most of the meals around the house, but there are occasions like this one when he’s gone, and it falls to Fon to provide something for the rest of them. Fon doesn’t mind, but being constantly bombarded with clashing meal requests exhausts him like nothing else. He has no idea how Colonnello manages to keep everyone happy, so he doesn’t even try; he just makes whatever <em>he</em> personally feels like eating.</p>
<p>(Seven years old: his mother deems it safe for him to watch and occasionally stir a pot of soup on the stove while she does knife work at the other counter. It’ll be a while before she teaches him to chop vegetables; she won’t even let him <em>near</em> the mandolin.)</p>
<p>“Hey, Fon.”</p>
<p>“Luce,” Fon acknowledges, peeling open the plastic package of pot sticker wrappers. He never learned to make them himself, and at this point, trying feels wrong. “I was just getting started. Do you need something?”</p>
<p>“Nah. Just wanted to see you. What’s cooking?” Luce asks, picking up a raw mushroom from the counter. She pops it into her mouth whole and starts chewing. “Looks like you’ve got a whole spread prepared.”</p>
<p>“That’s disgusting,” Fon admonishes. She takes another mushroom, and he gives up on trying to reprimand her. “And the answer is nothing, if you keep eating my ingredients.”</p>
<p>(Eight years old: he burns himself picking up a wok full of fried rice, inner arm coming into contact with the rounded edges for about a second before he realizes and drops it. His mother screams when she sees his arm, and Fon only starts to cry when he picks up on her distress. Thereafter, he is banned from the kitchen… or at least until he wears his mother down by begging as pitifully as he can.)</p>
<p>“They’re good!” Luce protests, sidling up to him and hugging his arm. “Can I help?”</p>
<p>“Do you mean help, or do you mean you want to stand around watching me?”</p>
<p>Luce smiles guiltily. “Weeeell, I can help if you really want me to.” She releases him.</p>
<p>Fon hums, passing the wrappers over to her. Her long nails are better suited for the job than his. “Peel these apart and put them onto a plate. Please.”</p>
<p>“You got it!” Luce says, getting to work. “Let me know if you want anything else done, ‘kay?”</p>
<p>“We’ll see.”</p>
<p>(Ten years old: Fon’s mother teaches him how to debone a chicken. The lesson extends to other types of meat, as she says he’ll find it intuitive. He hates the feeling of tendons and gristle giving away under the knife, but it’s worth it for the finished product.)</p>
<p>They go about their tasks in silence, for the most part. Preparing pot stickers is mostly just busywork—no real brain power needed. Luce finishes with the first set of wrappers and he directs her to the second.</p>
<p>After that, she helps him with seasonings. He’s been crouched over a bowl on the kitchen floor, mixing green onions and ground meat with his bare hands—it’d be a hassle to keep washing them every time he needs to add something new, and it’s just not the same to mix it with a spoon.</p>
<p>Fon directs her carefully, cringing when Luce’s hand slips and she adds a little too much fish sauce. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but he’d rather not have to.</p>
<p>(Eleven years old: he has learned about a fifth of the recipes his mother knows. She’s hard on him, a strict teacher, but that’s always been the best way to get something through his head.)</p>
<p>He’s learned a few things about correcting his mistakes, but still. Better if he doesn’t mess up in the first place.</p>
<p>“Luce…”</p>
<p>She pauses what she’s doing, looking over at him. “Yes?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t respond for a moment, trying to think about how to pose the question.</p>
<p>“Do you ever think things could have been different?” Fon says at last, picking his bowl up from the floor and setting it on the counter. He stretches to pop his back, smiling with half his mouth when Luce looks at him askance.</p>
<p>“Different like how?” she responds, fishing a couple of dried mushrooms out of the water they’d been soaking in and slicing them into small pieces.</p>
<p>(Eleven years old, still eleven, such a long year, eleven is: a fifth is all she’ll ever teach him.)</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Fon says. It’s rare for him to be this outwardly contemplative, and he’s finding it hard to put his thoughts into words. How can he explain this vague feeling of regret inside his chest, the memory of a gently scolding voice?</p>
<p>“If you’re talking about <em>us</em>…”</p>
<p>“No,” Fon says quickly. “Maybe in relation to the issue, but not centrally.”</p>
<p>“The mafia?” Luce guesses. She’s become accustomed to reading his quieter moods, and doing her best to interpret his words. Sometimes she knows what he’s trying to say better than he does. “Or in your case, it’d be the triads, huh?”</p>
<p>Fon shakes his head. Well, she’s right, but… “Never mind. I’m just wondering out loud. I think I need to meditate.”</p>
<p>“I’ve never really thought about those kinds of things,” Luce says, continuing the conversation regardless. She mixes her assortment of mushrooms together while Fon dumps various sauces and seasonings onto them. Next is wrapping them all up, and frying is the last step. “I was born into this life, so I didn’t exactly get the chance to think about other options.”</p>
<p>(Twelve years old: he can’t enter a kitchen without wanting to cry.)</p>
<p>“You had less of a choice than most,” Fon says.</p>
<p>She shrugs. “What can you do?” she asks, voice taking on an edge of fatalism. “If it’s worth anything, Fon, I’m glad you’re here and not off living some other life.”</p>
<p>“What’s done is done,” he agrees, retrieving the plate of wrappers. The dull, muted ache in his chest still persists, tempered by the frustrating confusion of being unable to properly articulate what he wants to say, but he feels like he’s on the course to reaching some kind of conclusion about today’s jumble of emotions. “I’m glad, too. I think.”</p>
<p>(Fourteen years old: his course is set. His life is hard. He doesn’t see any other options.)</p>
<p>The smile Luce gives him is almost painful, with the amount of love she manages to pack into one expression. “Come here, you,” she orders, cupping his face with both her hands.</p>
<p>“You got mushroom juice on my face,” he says, raising his eyebrows but bending nonetheless.</p>
<p>“It’ll wash off,” Luce dismisses, pulling him close for a slow kiss. She murmurs something unintelligible against his lips, probably some declaration of love—she likes to do that. When she pulls away from him, she’s still wearing that same smile, and he finds himself unable to resist returning it. “Come on, let’s get this over with. I’m starving.”</p>
<p>(He supposes he doesn’t mind all that much, in the end.)</p>
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